Kiyoba
Kiyoba was an elderly villager who passed away shortly after the harvest moon festival. Appearance She was 99 years old and had been bedridden since spring due to poor health. She was a short woman, with short hair and a squarish face and wore traditional kimonos. During the series she had white hair and prominent wrinkles but when she was young she had black hair and black eyes. All her 3 children took after her in appearance. Personality She was a kind hearted woman who frequently helped the village children make toys. She is most famous for being very good at making spool tanks. She also had a sense of humour as she wrote in her will that she wanted a photo of her younger days to be displayed at the funeral, it because she was practically unrecognisable in it they displayed it beside a current photo. Overview She was first seen during the harvest moon festival, Imoman. Miwa and Tama stated that everyone was forbidden from visiting her because she had become bedridden since spring. However the kids insisted on visiting her, saying that if they don’t visit her now they might not get a chance to see her again. Hearing this, sensei decides to bring them to her house, only to be surprised with the presence of both Miwa and Tama eating yams on her porch. They said they mainly forbade the younger kids from coming because they would be noisy and disturb Kiyoba. Sensei is also surprised to see the village nurse, Iku-san, who was staying with Kiyoba. The children gather in Kiyoba’ s room to have a chat with her, during this time Hina breaks her yam in half and offers half to Kiyoba, telling her to eat it and get well. The other children seeing this all give Kiyoba half of their yams in hopes she will get better. Once it has gotten late, sensei, Miwa, and Tama take the younger children home. While on the way back with Naru and Hina, Naru realises she had forgotten her bag of snacks at Kiyoba’ s house. Sensei decides to bring Hina home first and wait for Naru at the bus stop. As Naru grabs her bag of snacks, she is stopped by Kiyoba who asks her to have a sit. She comments that Kiyoba must be feeling a little lonely being in bed all the time now which Kiyoba agrees that she is and says that she loves seeing the smiles of the villagers the most. When Naru heads back to a waiting sensei, she tells him Kiyoba is feeling lonely and says she will go visit everyday and bring the other children as well. At first she thinks he will reprimand her for being noisy around Kiyoba who was unwell, but instead he says that it must be comforting to have someone there for them when they are sick and tells her that when she goes over she must behave herself and make sure to follow the nurse’s orders while they are visiting. Shortly after Tama and Miwa come back from their school trip, they hear an ambulance coming into the village. Kiyoba has passed away that afternoon. At the wake, sensei learns that Iku was not related to Kiyoba in anyway and was actually her neighbour. When Iku was young she often came to Kiyoba’s house to play and to ask for help with her toy spool tank. She adored Kiyoba and they had a daughter-mother like relationship. As Kiyoba got older, and especially after falling ill, Iku dedicated all her time to care for Kiyoba, to the point that even kiyoba’s own children commented that Iku looked after Kiyoba more than any of them did. Throughout most of the funeral process Iku keeps a calm demeanour and keeps everything running smoothly. When she places flowers in Kiyoba’s casket with Aiko, as she looks at Kiyoba, Aiko suddenly bursts into tears. However the casket is loaded onto the funeral car to be brought to the gravesite, as the car drives away Iku finally unable to contain herself, bursts into tears and cries out for Kiyoba not to go and leave her alone. Relationship Iku - Iku lives with Kiyoba and is her primary caretaker. When she was a child she was Kiyoba’s neighbour and often came to her for comfort when she was picked on. Because of this they had a mother-daughter type of relationship and were very fond of one another. After growing up and becoming a nurse, she moves in with Kiyoba and dedicates herself looking after the elderly woman. Her children had commented that Iku took more care of their mother than they did. Gallery 1517432C-5C33-4479-BF14-F8CA89B2BEB0.jpeg|Hina giving Kiyoba half her yam 565BC30B-2540-4665-B8FB-F9A0C579F3EC.jpeg|Kiyoba during the harvest festival FB6128CB-75A8-46A8-92AC-4913B4E0C811.jpeg|Young Kiyoba 77F358FE-1B9F-4CD3-BBC0-158BC6690A7D.jpeg|Kiyoba with an elementary school Iku BBF2C21B-1FDB-459E-889C-14D2F0901E68.jpeg|Kiyoba’s 3 children who all live far away from her, the one on the most left lives in France 75E4B236-0D4D-4944-8825-B8CC4DF527AA.jpeg|Iku crying after Kiyoba Category:Characters Category:Female Characters